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Monday, May 20, 2013

You want to save the Planet? Compost.

After 5 years at wordpressI've decided to move my blog to blogger. This was my first post there.

(Originally) Posted on September 25, 2007 by mrmolehill

Could I have chosen a more boring subject for my first ever
blogpost? Maybe.

But this is important enough to, well, be important. I
know that you have heard about Cfl's and French fry grease for fuel. But the truth is that Gasoline, For all
its faults is pretty much the best thing going right now. Will that
change in the future? Man, I hope so. But for about the last 40 or so
years, we have been hearing about solar and wind being the future of
energy. And while most technologies have gotten better and less
expensive, Solar is still not the panacea it was promised to be.

Since solar cells were originally made from slag (waste) from the
silicon chip industry,and chips are now being made more efficiently, the
solar folks have to actually manufacture their own raw materials, Thus
solar is now MORE expensive than ever. And if you live in a neighborhood
with trees as I do, you may find that you have to cut some down in
order to get full capacity from them. (I would have to cut down two. A
huge live oak and a ficus tree.) According to one website that sells
solar power systems, “Solar Power accounts for 0.001% of the electricity
generated in this country.” and as I have looked at various sites I
have yet to find one that says that their manufacturing plant is powered
by Solar electricity.

Wind power is somewhat better. The problem with Wind is that in
order for it to provide power for even a small community a Wind machine
has to be Huge, And properly sited. There is saying in Germany that
“wind machines don’t run on wind, they run on subsidies.” Or you can
have the small backyard machine. You don’t need an Electrical
Engineering degree to install one, But it helps. So if your city's
building code allows it and your neighbors don’t complain about the
noise and you get enough, but not Too Much Wind and the whole thing
doesn’t come crashing down in a thunderstorm, Then you may be able to
supplement your grid power.

Which brings me to the subject at hand. (you knew I would get there
eventually, right?) As I keep hearing, The main problem is an excess of
CO2. Carbon Dioxide. There is just too much of it. Now I am not going to
go into the sources of it, Be it SUVs’, electrical power plants or
moose farts. The fact remains it’s there and we need to get rid of it.
Sure we should find ways to reduce emissions in the future but Hey, I
want to get the dirt out of my house now, then I’ll worry about tracking
more in, OK.

So what can we do, what can anyone do right now without a
great outlay of cash, To help get rid of some of this gas? Well,
plants and trees breathe it, right? But the real problem is that we are
stripping away the fertile topsoil and replacing it with chemical
fertilizers. So you Vegans are not off the hook yet either. We throw
away garbage everyday that can be turned into the best plant food on the
earth. We seal it in plastic bags and truck It to centralized locations
to be buried and, when the hill is big enough, turned into a golf
course or a nice sled run. Then we truck in more plastic bags filled
with COMPOST.

So why not stop wasting all that fuel and just make it
yourself? It’s not hard, there are plenty of books on the subject,
Although you can learn pretty much all you need to know in an article
not much longer than this one. And those chemically fed plants? A
plant that is not getting the proper Nutrients is not an efficient Co2
Processing machine. And compost is a much better and more balanced
source of those nutrients than any chemist.

Chemical pesticides often kill
natural adversaries of the bugs you are trying to get rid of. How many
pounds of coffee grounds does the average coffee shop throw away each
day? I’m sure you could get all you want just for the asking. Florists
have dumpsters full of scrap plant material that they would much rather
not have to pay to have hauled away. Recycled Plastic would make very
good Compost bins. It just takes a little thought.